It Ends is an evocative horror title if there ever was one. The simple, blunt name of writer-director Alexander Ullom’s feature debut immediately conjures up a powerful sense of dread that sends the mind racing in a million directions. After premiering at SXSW 2025 and having brief availability on the Letterboxd Video Store, the buzz has been real leading up to the film’s nationwide theatrical release by NEON. Fortunately, it more than warrants the hype. It Ends (2025) combines naturalistic performances with powerful minimalist visuals for a true existential nightmare. In an already stacked year for the genre, Ullom uncovers an entirely new flavor of horror.
The concept is simple. Four friends who haven’t seen each other in some time — James (Phinehas Yoon), Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth), and Tyler (Mitchell Cole) — all gather for a road trip. After turning onto a road that leads into the deep woods, they realize after a long while that the highway they were supposed to hit miles ago is nowhere in sight. Turning around, they find that the road back to where they came from has completely disappeared, leaving them at a dead end.
While stopped, they’re swarmed by a horde of people clawing to be let in their car. Hitting the gas, the gang then spends days, then weeks, then months riding down the same wooded road as they hold onto their dwindling sanity.
‘It Ends’ Establishes Fully Fleshed Out Protagonists
For a horror film with only four major characters on-screen, it’s important that they are entertaining to watch. Alexander Ullom’s script and each core cast member add a level of dimensionality rare in modern horror. Phinehas Yoon’s James tries to find logic in everything around him, Noah Toth’s Fisher is irreverent and jokey to a fault, Akira Jackson’s Day often shrinks into herself while letting others’ thoughts and feelings take precedence, and Mitchell Cole’s Tyler is simple to a fault. All of these characters are fully three-dimensional, united by a sense that they’re stuck in their lives while avoiding confronting it.
It Ends establishes that shared feeling so well that it creates constant tension about when each individual, as well as the friend group, will snap. Filmmaker Alexander Ullom creates a pressure-cooker situation that explores the harsh pain of people drifting apart in life, yet not quite knowing what their path forward will be. Complicated dynamics are at play here. For example, Day and Fisher want to keep the peace, while there’s a resentment on Tyler’s end towards James for drifting apart from them. James, on the other hand, seems ready to move on from the group altogether. Everyone is on the precipice of change, and then forced to confront it in their new, tormented reality.
Alexander Ullom Mines Horror Out of Existentialism
The characterization is so strong, not to mention painful, in the push-and-pull of the dynamics at play, that we haven’t even gotten into the visceral, almost cosmic horror of the endless road. Cinematographers Evan Draper and Jazleana Jones, like its characters, start with a more natural, lifelike approach, making the two-lane stretch flanked by trees on all sides look like any backroad. The inside of the car itself feels cozy at first, complementing the peaceful woods around it. Through creative angles, such as lingering on pavement and the endless stretch of trees ahead or tight close-ups in the car, the trip aesthetically turns into a claustrophobic Hell where something, anything different, would be a reprieve.
The helplessness of the scenario in It Ends is helped by how Alexander Ullom establishes the rules of the seemingly endless highway. There’s a certain supernatural element involved, as the car is able to keep going even after the gas has run out. Similarly, the characters no longer need to eat or drink to survive. They constantly question if they’re in purgatory or some form of the afterlife; just as well, seeing them try to make sense of their predicament and set up group rules — like designated screaming, music, and venting time while also timing their stops to see how long it takes the hordes to come out of the woods — is utterly fascinating.
A Distinct, Lasting Flavor of Horror For 2026
Ultimately, what works most about It Ends is how it mines horror out of pondering the courses our lives can take. Riding along with no end in sight, do you make the best of your situation and enjoy what company you have? Do you search for signs, like James does as he starts to crack, that this all means something and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel? Or, is riding in the car a futile pursuit and joining the others stranded in the woods the way to go?
There are so many ways to interpret what the journey in It Ends means. It could be a general metaphor for life, work-life balance, or growing out of your relationships with people. The core is the terror of not only getting older, but having to reckon with the pain of living. As the title states, It Ends. The hold this film has on the viewer will likely not. It Ends is a deeply thoughtful and discomforting debut from Alexander Ullom that may not be as flashy as other horror movies this year, like Backrooms or Obsession, but provides a more distinct, lasting flavor of horror than anything in a long time.
★ ★ ★ ★ ½
‘It Ends’ hits theaters on August 21!
Release Date: August 21, 2026.
Directed by Alexander Ullom.
Written by Alexander Ullom.
Produced by Carrie Carusone & Evan Barber.
Executive Producers: Christopher Amick, Roshni Rush Bhatia, Jess Wu Calder, Keith Calder, Chris Ferguson, Ryan Keely, Andrew Mayne, Ben Mekler, Elle León Nostas, & Carson Tappan.
Main Cast: Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, Mitchell Cole, Jon Linstad, Jenny Doyle, Ian Weir, & Alexander Ullom.
Cinematographers: Evan Draper & Jazleana Jones.
Composer: Matthew Robert Cooper.
Editor: Alexander Ullom.
Production Companies: Growing Up Dead Films & Snoot Entertainment.
Distributor: Letterboxd Video Store & Neon.
Runtime: 90 minutes.
Rated R.
